"The Jungle Books" and other topics

Did y'all ever read Kipling's The Jungle Books? If not, go pick up a copy and do some reading. They're great. I just bought myself a new copy after having lived for over a year without the one I lent to someone.

They're nothing like Disney's version, and while I adore that one too, I do think I like the original Books much better. They're wilder, more real, humourous and visceral at the same time. They teach you lessons without your knowing you're absorbing the lessons.

I like the poems and the other stories included in most copies of the Books. One of my favourite of the short stories is called The Undertakers. Very funny, and quite realistic. And one of the best poems, IMO, is A Ripple Song. Morbid, yes, and sad, but well done.

You're going to think I am a very morbid person, given what I've been talking about on this blog at certain points (Egyptology, bog bodies, &c.). Sometimes I am, I will admit it. But not always. I just talk about things that interest me, and it so happens that this morbid stuff is interesting. Egyptology is interesting for many reasons, not the least of which is paleopathology and its relationship to the diseases suffered by modern Egyptians.

There's this little microorganism (or whatever) in the water of the Nile that causes a disease called schistosomiasis (bilharziasis). Ancient Egyptians nearly all had the disease -- and almost all modern Egyptians who bathe in/drink from the Nile have it too. It's inescapable for them as of right now, but so debilitating that one would have thought there'd have been a cure for it found many years ago.

I think this kind of thing is very interesting. Though many people have studied the disease, no one has yet found a cure. Why? Lack of funding? Lack of interest? Lack of available information? It makes me wonder -- and wish that I could help.

But alas, to study these things and/or produce any effective answers to questions such as the ones I have just posed, one needs to have more than a passing familiarity with mathematics and science -- which I do not. I am woefully ignorant of these two fields of study and think that anyone who knows anything about either of them is a genius.

Thus I bow to Jess's wisdom and expertise, since she is in nursing and therefore knows way, way more about math and science and chemistry and physics than I ever will. Go visit her blog and you will see what I am talking about. http://clairbannerman.blogspot.com

And by the way, Jess darling, fair's fair: I'm going to say it 'cos you said it first. "Jess is drop dead gorgeous, and since it's my blog, she can't say any different! Muahaha!"

Tee hee! :)

I am sitting at my desk at work right now and looking at a list of food supplied by the college campus's cafe -- and am wondering what exactly "gourmet buffalo fries" are, or if I even want to know what they are. This question, and perhaps others, will sustain my mind during the long and boring class I have tonight.

It's very strange that when I sit down to post a blog, almost every topic I'd been meaning to discuss disappears from my mind. Why is that?? I am quite unsettled by this. Before I came to college, I could remember everything I had to do for an entire week without once putting pencil to paper. Now, however, I write myself notes that include the most basic instructions. Sample note for one day of my life at college is as follows:

"Get up. Take bath!!! Write paper. Print book review. Eat lunch. Go to school. Classes. Meeting with professor 3 p.m. -- don't forget!!!!! Get petrol after school. Go home. Eat dinner. Sleep."

I kid you not, this is what my mind is like these days. I can't remember anything. Oh, wait, yes, I do remember some things. Prison Break is on FOX, 9 p.m. Monday night, followed by CSI: Miami on CBS at 10 p.m. New Lost episodes are, sporadically, on ABC Wednesday night at 9 p.m., which is unfortunate because I don't get home until 9:25 p.m.

Yeah...my mind's completely gone. Now the question remains: is this because of the horribly devastating influence of the telly or because I have to remember so much in order to succeed at college?

I prefer to think it's the latter. I can't help it if my mind retains random information from the telly and not from my textbooks! The telly is just so much more interesting!! ;)

Now I am off to ponder another meaningless and interminably-present question: Will "Kate" (or The Rabbit Girl, as I call her) ultimately choose Jack or Sawyer???

Tune in next week for the next thrilling and terrifying episode of Lost, in which someone will suffer a horrific injury, find a mysterious yet vitally important artifact all by itself in the middle of the jungle, get into a rollicking good fight with another survivor, create a whole new way to be nails-on-the-chalkboard annoying, be captured and brainwashed by the Others, or discover a fully-operating discotheque populated entirely by polar bears.